"Sure they could, with the exception of having a couple of secret treaties or so," Morris agreed, "but at the same time, Abe, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if since the discovery of these here secret treaties, Mr. Wilson has waked up more than once somewheres around three a.m. and asked himself did he or did he not need a mandatory, y'understand, and also wondered what the folks back home is thinking—particularly a few Senators like Lodge and Johnson."
"I don't agree with you, Mawruss," Abe declared. "I think that Mr. Wilson will get the better end of the deal, because from what has happened in this war, Mawruss, diplomacy is one of them games where the feller which don't know how to play it has got a big advantage over the feller that does. So, therefore, while the old-time experienced diplomatist is saying it never has been done that way and therefore couldn't be done, Mawruss, a new beginner like Mr. Wilson has already gone to work and done it, which I bet yer right now, Mawruss, that if Mr. Wilson don't want Italy to have Fiume she won't get it, and the same thing goes for Japan also, Mawruss—secret treaty or no secret treaty."
"Still, there's a whole lot of people in America which would like to see Italy get Fiume, Abe," Morris said.
"There was a whole lot of people, Mawruss," Abe said, "but this secret-treaty business has killed it, which if Italy wanted to be fair about it, why didn't she come right out before the armistice even and say, 'Look-a-here, we got a secret treaty and we may as well tell you so right from the start'?"
"Then the secret treaty wouldn't been no more secret, Abe," Morris said.
"She would have been doing the manly thing, anyway," Abe said.
"I know she would," Morris admitted, "but that's the difference between the old-fashioned Italian diplomacy and the new-fashioned American diplomacy. The Italians believe that there should be secret covenants of peace secretly arrived at, and we believe that there should be open covenants of peace openly arrived at."
"There is also the difference, Mawruss, that the Italians stick to their beliefs," Abe concluded, "and we don't."